Here's a happy dance track for your weekend. Enjoy Project Cyborg and their crazy remixes. Fun fun.

Summer is slow, so enjoy extreme pot busts, Mexican drug lords, naked busjackings, drunk police, and all-ages rave club busts, all delivered in a media-pleasant monotone. Thanks to ClipSyndicate.

So, they just released a study demonstrating that a mother's sexual behavior during the first five years of a child's life can determine later drug use and delinquent behavior. Meaning what? A stable family is instrumental in keeping kids from risk behaviors? Like, double-wow!

Preschoolers whose mothers had three or more break-ups or new partners were three times more likely than their peers to take up smoking and almost twice as likely to use cannabis.

"If we can identify what increases a child's risk in the first five years by looking at their family structure, hopefully we can prevent people becoming substance abusers later," the study's lead author Reza Hayatbakhsh, said. Published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, the study found the four main factors that increased a child's risk of substance use were disrupted families, drug-using parents, childhood problem behaviours and poor supervision by parents.

An alternate finding shows that children of obsessively overbearing parents are three times as likely to use prescription antidepressants and/or anxiety medications, but I just made that last statistic up, so you can quote me on that.

From: The Psychedelic Salon : Subscribe : FREE MP3 Download

PROGRAM NOTES:

NOTE: All quotations below are by Dr. Timothy Leary.

"When I say think for yourself, I don’t mean think selfishly for yourself. I mean think independently."

"If you’re going to think for yourself, you gotta learn to think clearly."

"The person who thinks for herself or himself has to have a sense of humility, and of modesty, and of relativity because you have to realize that I’m thinking for myself, but hopefully you are too, and you’re bound to come out with something a little different from me. So there has to be an ability to listen, compassion, plus the modesty. No matter how smart we are there’s a lot we aren’t going to be able to figure out tonight."

"I’m glad we’re laughing together because that’s a key. A sense of humor is the key. … That ability to laugh together certainly goes along with the ability to think together."

"Any time you introduce a new technology of thought processing, or of thought communication, you change everything else."

[Speaking about the biblical Eve] "I’m really pleased that the first member of my species was a woman who had the courage to stand up on her feet and think for herself."

"The idea that any human being should be forced by economics, forced to do work that can be done better by a machine or a computer is totally humiliating to any concept of our human dignity and worth."

"Now in the Industrial Age, a good person was someone who was prompt, reliable, dependable, productive, efficient, and replaceable."

"It’s always the artists, by the way, I think. The artists, and the entertainers, and the writers, and the musicians whose job it is to prepare society, to become a comfortable way for changes that otherwise would be too frightening."

"The point of the 20th century, you can argue, is to get us to accept knowledge, processing, and reality on screens."

"To me, a computer is a thought processor."

The Guardian reports today on a report given to US intelligence officials which describes how drugs will play an increasing role in expanding the battlefield of future wars. Some exciting tidbits:

On the battlefield, bullets may be replaced with "pharmacological land mines" that release drugs to incapacitate soldiers on contact....

Wicked! I actually thought we had this technology already, given how often my friends have threatened to forcibly sedate me with Thorazine darts. Also:

Drugs could also be used to enhance the performance of military personnel. There is already anecdotal evidence of troops using the narcolepsy drug modafinil, and ritalin, which is prescribed for attention deficit disorder, to boost their performance. Future drugs, developed to boost the cognitive faculties of people with dementia, are likely to be used in a similar way, the report adds.

Of course, there is also anecdotal evidence that using modafinil and ritalin help you concentrate, do a better job, and generally just feel a little smarter - maybe that will help us avoid getting into battles in the first place? Joking, I'm joking here, I'm just a big kidder.

And then there's torture. Not directly pharm-related, but still of interest to this crowd:

"The concept of torture could also be altered by products in this market. It is possible that some day there could be a technique developed to extract information from a prisoner that does not have any lasting side effects," the report states.

The report highlights one electronic technique, called transcranial direct current stimulation, which involves using electrical pulses to interfere with the firing of neurons in the brain and has been shown to delay a person's ability to tell a lie.

Sweet transcranial torture, how I have longed for thee. The cool part about this technology is that sure, we'll first be using it on terrorists, but eventually Radio Shack will carry a version that can be used on small children as well. And that's why the future is already so damn cool.

I've uploaded a fascinating video clip where a TV presenter is intravenously injected with the active ingredients of cannabis as part of the BBC documentary 'Should I Smoke Dope?'.

It's part of an experiment to compare the effects of intravenous THC and cannabidiol combined, with intravenous THC on its own. The mix of both gives the presenter a pleasant giggly high while THC on its own causes her to become desolate and paranoid.

Both are these are known to be key psychoactive ingredients in cannabis but the video is interesting as it is a reflection of the fact that THC has been most linked to an increased risk of developing psychosis while cannabidiol seems to have an antipsychotic effect.

Thanks Mayra!

With Olympics in the news everyone has doping on their mind (ah, doping, how I love thee.) But taking a pill to make yourself stronger is so 20th century. Now we have gene doping, which involves "modifying an athlete's DNA, or having them inject or inhale foreign DNA, to make them bigger, stronger and faster. It's harder to detect than most drugs, which makes it all the more desired by cheaters looking to prosper."

A German television report on the availability of gene doping in China, which aired just a few days before the Olympics, stunned anti-doping experts. In the documentary by ARD television, a reporter posing as an American swimming coach met with a doctor who is the head of the gene-therapy department of an unnamed Chinese hospital. The hidden-camera report shows the Chinese doctor, with his face blurred, offering gene-therapy treatment to the undercover reporter in return for $24,000. The reporter tells the doctor he's seeking stem-cell treatment for one of his swimmers. "Yes. We have no experience with athletes here, but the treatment is safe and we can help you," the doctor replies (his answer was translated by the news program). "It strengthens lung function and stem cells go into the bloodstream and reach the organs. It takes two weeks. I recommend four intravenous injections—40 million stem cells or double that, the more the better. We also use human growth hormones, but you have to be careful because they are on the doping list..."

Stronger lungs and organs? Bah. Do you think there's any DNA therapy to keep me permanently Dope? Be much obliged...

For those not familiar with clones or clinging, it is the science of creating genetically identical copies of an organism by replicating its DNA sequences. There are various forms of cloning. However for the purposes of this entry, I am referring to reproductive cloning.

Cloning is one of the most advanced technological discoveries in the field of modern biology. While some what new to existing in reality, the concept is rather old. In fact when I first think of cloning, Huxley's 1932 novel 'Brave New World' is the first example which comes to mind. Along with many other works of science fiction which have speculated at a future manipulated by cloning. Some feature films include Jurassic Park, Island of Dr. Moreau, Blade Runner, Star Wars, The Island and many others. This technology is now fact, not fiction.

Cloning has the potential to repair or replace damaged organs or tissue, defective genes, hearts, infertility and possibly even cure cancer.

To date fish, cats, dogs, cattle, goats, horses, pigs, rabbits, rats, monkeys, sheep and many other animals have all been successfully cloned. At least this is the list disclosed to the public. The odds are likely that secret research is occurring in labs around the planet.

So considering all the previously mentioned potential medical benefits cloning may bring to mankind. What has science chosen to use this new cloning technology for in real life applications? My first impulse was to cure a disease? No, the latest cloning accomplishment is a new line of cloned drug sniffing Labrador retrievers. All of which have passed a behavior test to check if they are qualified to work as drug sniffing dogs. Typically only 10 to 15 percent of naturally born dogs pass the test.

"They have a superior nature. They are active and excel in accepting the training," said Kim Nak-seung, a trainer at the Korean Customs Service affiliated dog training center.

If the cloned dogs succeed in other tests for physical strength, concentration and sniffing ability, they will be put to work by July next year at airports and harbors across South Korea, according to the training center.

Why not bomb sniffing dogs? Wouldn't that be more beneficial line of work cloned super dogs? The same laboratory claims they could clone cancer-sniffing canines. Who knows, prior to being excepted to purchase life or health insurance. You may need to be screened by a clog first?

If Hitler had cloning technology, I'm sure he would have cloned dogs to sniff out "inferior races" of human beings to send them off to concentration camps. Maybe the war on drugs will really out do the goals of Nazi science and be the first to use cloned dogs (or cloned super soldiers) to send its "undesirable" citizens off to prisons. Of course this technology will not be limited to dogs, it will eventually be applied in new forms of eugenics. Are human beings with altered or missing receptor sites to far out of the realm of possibility?

I must confess I am NO expert on cloning. If there are any inaccuracies in this blog entry, please do let me know or correct me in the comments. I always welcome feed back in general as well.

Here's a stupidly diverting way to spend an afternoon: head on over to the Parallel Universe Film Guide, an IMDB for movies that don't exist, run a search on "drugs," and giggle fitfully at some of the entries. For instance, the 1964 film Nanny My Fanny, which is summarized as a "delightful musical about magical nursemaid who cares for children of British family during Edwardian era, but is really travelling without immigration papers and using the home as a base to smuggle drugs through animated mules. Songs include 'A Tootful of Snuff' and 'A Crown a Dime Bag.'" The film features these famous lyrics:

Wowzyextraglitterificnutsyuberflain

That's the code so dealers know your butt's filled with cocaine

We will get supplies to them in sunshine or in rain

Oh, wowzyextraglitterificnutsyuberflain!

Or the 1967 film LSD-lightful, which the guide summarizes thusly:

Director is introduced to the world of hallucinogens, eats own face. The staff of The Parallel Universe Film Guide do not advocate the use of such drugs--i.e., acid, tabs, Heavenly Blue, orange micro, windowpane, sacrament, sandoz, mind detergent, sugar lumps--but would like to note that in a person of normal body weight, a dose of 25 to 75 ug. is enough to produce some pretty weird shit.

And of course, the 2005 film Biggest Ass Monkey, summarized as the "second remake of Big Ass Monkey (1933) takes everyone's favorite giant ape back to his 1930s roots, where he participates in the Olympic Games, shatters all records, later is accused of steroid abuse, stripped of his medals." The film features this famous quote:

(Biggest Ass Monkey and his lawyer sit in front of House Committee on Oversight and Reform.)

Lawyer: My client, Biggest Ass Monkey, has answered every question asked of him today. As noted before, he did receive injections from his personal trainer but those were for supplemental banana oil and not for any kind of performance enhancing drugs.

(Biggest Ass Monkey whispers into lawyer's ear, as lawyer puts hand over microphone.)

Lawyer: Furthermore, because my client is a 50-foot tall ape, there is no needle known that would be able to penetrate his thick and densely hairy hide. Any claims by his personal trailer that he used a "super drill" to do so are totally fabricated.